The prevention and modification of delinquent behaviour is an issue of increasing concern to society, both in Great Britain and the U.S.A. This concern is aggravated by a growing amount of evidence which suggests that the majority of intervention procedures are not successful in preventing further offending by juvenile offenders (Cornish and Clarke, 1975, Hood and Sparks, 1970, Feldman, 1976). This appears to be true of both penal methods such as fines, probation or imprisonment (Hood and Sparks, 1970) and psychotherapeutic approaches (Logan, 1972).

While behaviour modification techniques are becoming more widely used in primary schools (Ward, 1971; Harrop, 1974; Presland, 1978), special education (McNamara, 1977; Ward, 1975) and even nursery schools (Coleman and Laishley, 1977), only a few studies have demonstrated successful implementation in Secondary Schools (McAllister et al, 1969; Broden et al, 1971). Harrop (1977) found that his in-service training course which had been successful with Primary School teachers was less successful in Secondary Schools. Lane (1977) argues that this is partly due to an inadequate initial functional analysis, whilst McNamara (1977) lists a number of reasons why implementation may be more difficult in the Secondary School setting.